


holding on to me so tight

by today



Category: Karlie Kloss - Fandom, Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: Christmas, Drinking, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 09:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9065641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/today/pseuds/today
Summary: “You didn’t do that thing where you read my mind again, did you?” Taylor asks when she opens the door.Karlie blinks. A draft coming from inside the apartment carries the scent of nutmeg outside. “Not unless you made pumpkin ginger snap cookies?” She holds up a Tupperware container."Oh, thank god."





	

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of this was inspired by conversations I’ve had on Tumblr, and on top of not finishing on time, it ended up being a lot more ridiculous then I had planned, but here we are.
> 
> Originally written for [All I Want For Christmas is This Ficathon](http://ratherembarrassing.tumblr.com/post/153919688653/a-peripherally-xmas-related-fic-bomb-a-thon-the).

“You didn’t do that thing where you read my mind again, did you?” Taylor asks when she opens the door.

Karlie blinks. A draft coming from inside the apartment carries the scent of nutmeg outside. “Not unless you made pumpkin ginger snap cookies?” She holds up a Tupperware container. 

“Oh, thank god.” Taylor pulls Karlie in and closes the door behind her. She sits her down at the dining table, which is littered with dishes. 

“Wow,” Karlie says, and Taylor grins at her, “this looks incredible. Remind me to spend Christmas with you more often.” 

“That can be arranged.” Taylor stirs the gravy on the stove, tasting a bit. She holds out the spoon to Karlie, who hums, before suggesting more salt. 

“Did you make the—” 

“Brussels sprouts are in the oven right now,” Taylor interrupts, and Karlie crows in delight. 

“Who’s reading minds now?” 

Taylor laughs. 

\- 

Selena and Cara come soon after Karlie, bearing different bottles of alcohol, then Lily and Martha, Ella, Gigi. Martha brings Meredith and Olivia little elf socks, and even though Meredith spends about five minutes trying to bat them off, scowling, Taylor bemoans Meredith’s love for her. 

“ _Something keeps you hanging on to nothing_ ,” Lily jokes, a little off-key, while Olivia stares dumbly at her paws, and everyone laughs as Taylor groans. Gigi and Karlie set the table for dinner. “Someone put the album on.” 

“I have it on my phone,” Ella offers. 

“You’re so mean to me,” Taylor says, “who raised you?” Ella smiles at her, batting her eyelashes. Taylor relents, grumbling. She ushers everyone into their seats, and begins to carve the turkey as Cara tops off their glasses. 

\- 

They don’t have a designated driver (“Safety first!”), and Taylor has already sent her security team home because it’s Christmas Eve, but it’s okay, since they’re all staying at Taylor’s overnight, anyway. There’s the master bedroom, and then besides Karlie’s, there are three other guest rooms, so “I hope that’s okay? If you don’t want to share beds, the sofa is super comfortable, Karlie and I have—” Taylor stops talking abruptly, blushing. Gigi snickers at her. 

Inevitably, they all end up sprawled out in the living room downstairs, anyway, so. 

Money well spent, obviously. 

After three toasts, Taylor becomes a little less concerned about being the perfect host for her guests, and more content to enjoy herself, rather than stress about how many extra toothbrushes she has. She insists that they all change into the Christmas sweaters she got them; Karlie’s manages to be the ugliest, and she’s just a little, incredibly touched by that. Someone puts on Taylor’s carefully arranged holiday playlist, listed just under a playlist for road trips, and that’s when Taylor really begins to relax. 

Sober Taylor likes to sing, where the situation permits: in the shower, while cooking, in the car; sometimes, to Ella or Karlie. 

Drunk Taylor _really_ likes to sing, is currently singing along to _Joy to the World_ , somehow simultaneously trying to convince Gigi to join her between lyrics. She doesn’t notice Gigi recording the entire thing. 

When _All I Want for Christmas is You_ begins to play over the stereo, she nearly shrieks, pulling Karlie, laughing, up onto her feet and singing directly to her. They sway on the spot. 

Taylor is still singing on-key, which is just unfair, because Karlie can hardly put one foot in front of the other when she’s drunk, and she figures Taylor should be about as awful at singing. Karlie is, possibly, delighted that Taylor’s dancing doesn’t improve with inebriation. She catches Gigi flipping her phone sideways to better capture the moment. 

“That’s actually really rather sweet,” Cara mutters to Selena. 

“Sort of,” Selena whispers loudly. “Except she sings that song every time she’s drunk. Even when it isn’t Christmas.” 

\- 

Drunk Taylor is also _really_ affectionate, which is saying something, because regular Taylor is already the sort of friend who likes to dole out hugs and cheek-kisses and hold hands. Drunk Taylor also likes to give out hugs to her friends, except she’s even less coordinated than usual, and ends up kind of hanging off of them instead. Which is a bit of a problem, since she’s so tall, especially for some of the more vertically-challenged; see: Selena. 

“I just want you to know,” Taylor says, in a voice that makes it sound like what she’s about to say is the most important thing in the world, “that your hair is the best. Is it the Pantene? Should I use Pantene?” 

“I told you, Taylor, it was just a commercial!” Selena tries to subtly extricate herself, before she keels over, collapsing to the floor, and clawing a little at Taylor’s arms, which are looped around her neck. _Help me_ , she mouths, and Karlie takes pity on her. She frees Selena from Taylor’s grasp, and Taylor attaches herself to Karlie instead. 

Selena has long realized that Karlie is an effective avoidance mechanism. Drunk Taylor likes to touch and kiss Karlie, like, a lot. 

She proceeds to press about twenty kisses to varying parts of Karlie’s body, some of which flush pink at the contact—Selena almost feels bad—then moves over to where Cara and Martha are playing with the cats, not before clutching Karlie’s hands in hers, kissing her knuckles, and murmuring something to Karlie that has her red-faced and spluttering. 

Gigi’s phone is still oriented sideways in her hands. Selena definitely feels a little bad now. 

Karlie is painting Ella’s nails for her, a cookie hanging from between her teeth, when Taylor comes over again later, shuffles up behind Karlie, and presses a kiss to the spot right behind her ear. Karlie jumps, and then shivers, involuntarily clamping her teeth shut, and the cookie crumbles to the floor. Ella smiles a little as she grabs the nail polish remover. 

"Taylor,” Karlie breathes. 

"Hm?” She presses another kiss to the point where Karlie’s temple meets her hairline, and now Karlie can’t really tell if Taylor meant to kiss her where she did, or if she just missed. She gives her the benefit of the doubt. 

"Nothing,” Karlie says, kissing Taylor carefully on the lips. Taylor smiles brightly, humming. Mariah Carey. Still on-key. Still unfair. 

\- 

After going through plates and plates of cookies and all of Karlie’s ginger snaps, several drinks later, Lily asks, “So when are you putting out a Christmas album?” 

Taylor stares at her like she’s grown a second head; she stops mixing the pitcher of sangria she’s making, and some brandy splashes onto the counter. Selena rolls her eyes. 

“Here we go,” she whispers to Cara. 

"When the studio album, Merry Christmas, by Mariah Carey, released in 1994, already exists? I don’t think so.” 

"But Taylor,” Ella says, slow and deliberate, and Gigi buries her head in the juncture of Karlie’s neck, smothering her laughter, “don’t you think she’s a little over-the-top in Merry Christmas?” 

“What other Christmas albums are there?” Martha mutters from the corner of her mouth. Everyone, but Taylor, who doesn’t hear, shrugs. 

"Ella,” Taylor says very seriously, and if there was any doubt before, Karlie is about one hundred percent sure she’s drunk, now, “I love you, but Mariah’s Christmas album was the absolute _peak_ of her musical career, and the very definition of festive.” She gestures wildly with a stirring stick; Karlie is only forty percent sure it isn’t the flag from her Moonman. “No holiday album has ever come close. Not only is it superior lyrically, but it’s also _sonically cohesive_ —” 

Selena exchanges a look with Lily, then stares pointedly at Karlie. Karlie sighs, makes her way, a little wobbly, to Taylor while she continues to talk, and tries to remove her bodily from the conversation before it can escalate. 

Drunk Taylor actually likes to be carried around because she likes to feel tall (“I can punch a hole in the roof, Karlie!”), and this would be fine normally, except that she and Karlie are tall, and the ceilings in Taylor’s New York apartment are low, and also they’re _tall_. 

There are about zero ways in which this couldn’t go wrong. 

Taylor slides out of Karlie’s arms, immediately tearing up and groaning, clutching the top of her head where it hit the part of her ceiling that dips. When Karlie drops down onto the floor beside her, realizing what’s happened, she promptly bursts into tears. 

So, okay. Maybe Karlie’s a little drunk, too. 

“Taylor, I am so, so, so sorry,” she says between sobs, “so, so sorry. Does it hurt? Fuck.” Karlie takes a shuddering breath. “Of course—of course it does.” She hugs Taylor tightly, running a hand clumsily through her hair, and Taylor buries her face in Karlie’s shoulder, one hand grasping at her top and the other still fluttering around her rapidly swelling forehead; the red-nosed giraffe stitched onto Karlie’s sweater gets a little warped, but neither of them notice. They stay that way for a while, kneeling on the hardwood floor. “That was so s-stupid.” 

"No, n-no, I’m sorry, Karlie, that—that was all me. I should have been—been paying attention,” Taylor stutters. 

“No! I should have been more _careful_ —” 

After about two minutes straight of listening to them trying to take the blame—they’re both still crying heavily—Cara says, “Uhm.” Everyone shushes her. “What,” she whispers, “we’re just going to leave them like this?” 

"It’s better to just let them get it all out,” Selena whispers back. Lily nods sagely. Gigi’s phone is even put away. 

At some point, their crying devolves into giggling through tears, until eventually Taylor bursts out laughing at something Karlie has said. Karlie stands, pulling Taylor, who slings an arm around Karlie’s shoulders, up with her; they begin to move toward the kitchen in a decidedly unsteady line. “ _I_ —” Taylor starts to sing, holding the long, warbling note for a bordering-on-ridiculous length of time. 

“They really are very sweet together,” Cara says. 

“Purrfect,” Martha agrees.


End file.
